Best Hamburger That Didn't Win In Our Online Burger Tournament Orange County 2012 - 320 Main

We have no shortage of great burgers in the county, as this summer's contestants in the Weekly's Game of Burgers tournament demonstrated. We somehow overlooked 320 Main's Bacon Burger, which would have given any of those contenders a serious run deep into the tournament. The coarse grind on the Wagyu beef has a toothy consistency, and it's cooked carefully so the fat renders out until it's no longer greasy but still juicy. That juice commingles with the red-onion jam and moistens the just-sweet-enough, just-eggy-enough roll. The two kinds of sweet are countered by the peppery, bitter arugula—the perfect foil for a rich burger devised by nature. Every restaurant has smoked, thick-sliced bacon, but 320 Main has Black Forest bacon; its thick, well-done chewiness counters the tenderness of the beef patty. The rocket that launches this burger into the stratosphere, however, is a $2 add-on: a sunny-side-up egg, perfectly fried under a lid so the white's fully cooked while the yolk's still oozing. The yolk binds the burger's juice and fats into a perfect sauce you'll swab with the sponge-like bun. When a burger flips on a switch in your carnivorous hyena brain, you'll understand why we keep going back for more.